Bargain
by Pierrot twixt Columbine
Summary: AU, set in the far, far future. Neji and Hinata make a deal. Warnings: Dark, incest, noncon.
1. Bargain1

Every night he returns to the trenches. He is young and stupid again, drunk on his newly earned jounin title and smiling at death's white, icy grin. He sits with his back pressed against the wall of frozen earth, watching the snow falling, the men around him falling, gasping, sleeping, bleeding, dying. And he is grinning, grinning.

The war will never end. He will never have to return to the Main House—at least, not alive. He will remain here for eternity, nestled between two walls of frozen earth, like a child who's crawled into his own grave and was only waiting for death. Above him he hears someone use a fireball jutsu, screaming it out in a panicked shriek. A wave of heat washes overhead and fizzes out; Neji feels warm liquid sloshing over the trench and soaking his head and shoulders. After a few seconds it slows to a trickle, and Neji pretends that he does not notice the traces of red in the melted snow.

*-*-*

The small room is a furnace when he wakes. His sweat has soaked the futon and lying in it makes him feel grimy and dirty. He rises and goes to open the window, breathing in the morning air and letting the cool mist breeze over his hot skin.

"You might as well come in," he says to the figure sitting outside his door. He has noticed its presence the moment he woke. "Been waiting out there for a while, haven't you?"

The door slides opens slowly, hesitantly, as if the person sitting outside was expecting him to dash over and slam the door shut in her face. He waits by the window, eyes blank and cool, as Hinata enters the room.

"To what do I owe this early honor, Hinata-sama?"

She wrings her hands and meets his eyes fleetingly, then looks away again. She looks nothing like the new leader of the clan; she looks like a little girl who is afraid he'll slap her if she says the wrong thing. The thought amused him and angered him. It pleased him.

"Neji nii-san, I have come to beg a favor of you."

He narrows his eyes and looks away from her, forcing his eyes to look at the peaceful morning scenery outside the window. The cold air feels wonderful on his skin, but he is still sweating. It is cold sweat now, like beads of melted snow dripping from his hair, sliding down the back of his neck and down his spine. "Beg? Please don't use such joking words with me, Hinata-sama. I cannot bear the honor."

She takes a step forward, eyes wide and panicked. She realizes that she has offended him. "Please, Neji nii-san, I did not mean it as a mockery. I need a favor..."

"What can I possibly do for you?"

"Anou...I need you to teach me...the Succession Technique."

He turns slowly from the window, jaws clenched and eyes deliberately blank. His hands are flat by his sides, pressed against his legs so that he cannot clench them into fists. "The Succession Technique? As the Hyuuga successor, I should think you would know the Succession Technique better than I do, Hinata-sama."

She takes another step forward, shaking her head frantically. "Father never taught me before he—before he...I have scrolls. The elders have given me scrolls illustrating the technique, the hand seals and the methods of chakra control."

She looks at him and blushes furiously, lowering her eyes to the ground. "But I am useless and cannot learn it properly."

He struggles to maintain a straight face, to contain the insane laughter that was bubbling up inside him. Hinata had never been taught the Succession Technique? How ridiculous; how absolutely absurd! He found it hard to believe that Hiashi-sama could be capable of such an oversight. To leave for war without even passing on the Succession Technique! How arrogant that man must have been, to think that he would be immune to death.

If not for you...

He crushes the voice before it can finish the thought. His fingertips are wet with sweat, tangled in the fabric of his robe.

"I cannot help you."

"Please, Neji nii-san! I've seen you use the Succession Technique. Only you can help me. You're the only other person who knows the technique."

He shakes his head and approaches her, his hands held out to ward her off and shoo her out the door. She steps backwards, babbling and pleading, until they reach the doorway.

"Please leave," he says, exasperated.

"Please, please, please Neji nii-san," she pleads mindlessly, and just as he is about to force her out the door, she falls onto her knees at his feet and clutches his knees. "Please, Neji nii-san!"

He flinches at her touch. "Let go."

"Please!" She lets go of him, but does not move from the spot. Instead she bends over prostrate, her forehead touching the tatami mat. Her voice is hoarse and barely above a whisper. "I beg of you. I'll do anything you ask. Just teach me."

"Don't you think this is a little ridiculous?" he asks harshly. "You're the leader of the Main House. At least try and act like it."

She does not move from her spot. "Will you teach me?"

"No."

He sees a slight trembling in the muscles of her back, but she remains in the same position, prostrate before him. Neji feels no mercy. Instead, it is anger that is rushing up at him, anger at being forced to bend to this weak girl's will. He could refuse her now, but she was the leader of the Main House. If she truly wanted anything from him, she could take it by force. His life was in her hand, after all.

And yet. And yet this girl insisted on begging him, on mocking him with this raw display of her weakness, of her unworthiness. She was flaunting the unfairness of it in his face, humiliating him with her show of humility. He felt a sudden desire to strike her, to stomp his foot onto her exposed back and see the shock in those mild eyes. He wanted to slap her, push her, demand an answer to why from her. Why were things this way?

"You said anything," he asks slowly, his voice cool and smooth like silk. A bead of sweat trickles from his forehead and into his eyes. He blinks in response to the sudden sting.

"Yes," she says. She lifts her head and looks at him cautiously.

"You'll regret that," he says.

"No," she says firmly, rising to her feet. The deal was made.

He smiles unpleasantly at her. "Yes. You will."

*-*-*

They train early in the morning, so that nobody from the Main House would suspect that he has been training her. There is no real reason for the secrecy; as the clan leader, Hinata could do as she pleased. It was Neji who wanted the anonymity.

Since his return from the war a year ago, Neji has remained in the shadow, slinking even further from the public eye than he was previously. He declined an offer to join the Anbu team, and has since been wasting his days away in his room. He shows up at house ceremonies, as was expected of him, but other than that, Hinata has not seen her cousin for almost a year.

"Your chakra control is still too weak," he tells her one day while they are training. "Punching a wooden dummy isn't going to help you get stronger if you can't even control chakra properly."

"Okay," she says, meeting his eyes and waiting for him to continue. For a while he only stares at her, a vertical crease slowly forming between his eyes. The air around her feels heavy with his anger, but she does not flinch from it. She pretends to be oblivious to his malice and only stares back at him.

He walks away from her and approaches a pile of dead leaves. He kneels by them and picks up a handful. She watches as he uses chakra to suspend the leaves in midair between his open palms, the leaves spinning in a gentle cyclone of chakra.

"Try it. Do not drop a single leaf, and do not break any either."

"Hai, Neji nii-san."

Around noon, she feels the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. "Stop. Go home and rest."

"But I—" she starts to protest, but he cuts her off with a scowl. She knows he is right. She has no chakra left. Even standing was becoming a feat; her knees were rubbery and the world was starting to unravel in nauseating waves. "Okay."

She turns in the direction of the house, takes a step, and collapses. He is there before she even realizes what has happened, one hand around her waist, the other draping her arm over his shoulders. He half-drags her home without saying a word, but she can feel his anger in the tenseness of his muscles, the hard flint of his eyes. She wants to apologize to him but decides against it, decides that it would only make him angrier. She wants to thank him, but hesitates for the same reason.

She tries a different approach. "What do you want, Neji nii-san?"

He turns his head slightly to look at her, and Hinata can see the hard muscles of his jaw clenching. "What do I want?"

"In return," she says.

He smiles at her coldly and says nothing. The servants are gathered at the doorway before they even reach the house; one of them must have seen him from a distance. He lets go of her so that she can go to them on her own, but grabs her wrist—no, more subtle than that, more like a brushing of the inside of her wrist with one finger—and when she turns to him, he mouths one word to her: tonight.

And then he is gone, stalking past the servants and making his way to his room.

*-*-*

Around midnight, he feels her presence outside his door.

"Come in," he says, not moving from his spot on the futon. The door slides open and she enters quietly, filling the room with her hushed fear. "Hello."

He has the window open and the room is cool and breezy, filled by pale moonlight and muted shadows. The sound of cicadas drifts lazily through the window.

"Come here," he commands. She is sitting by the door, putting as much distance between him and herself as possible. He wonders what she is afraid of, what she is anticipating. He wonders what he is anticipating. He does not know the reason why he called her here tonight—or well, he does, but not the specific reason. What could he possibly ask of her? He wanted nothing from her. She could not offer him freedom, nor relief from dreams of winter trenches.

She comes and sits next to him, her eyes fixed on the floor. Apparently the tatami mats in his room are fascinating.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, out of the blue.

"What?"

"I'm sorry," she repeats. She looks up and meets his eyes, and he sees pity there. "For everything."

His hand is up before he knows what he is doing and she flinches and closes her eyes. He stops himself before he strikes her. He squeezes his eyes shut, red anger exploding behind his eyelids. I_ will not strike the heir. I will not strike the heir._

"I don't need your pity," he says hoarsely. She starts to protest, but he cuts her off with a brusque wave of his hand.

For a while they sit in silence, her fear and his anger thrumming through the air. "Neji nii-san, what do you want me to do?"

"Kiss me," he says.

It is the last thing that she expects to hear. He sees her eyes widen, her lips parting to let loose a babbling stream of butchered words. Neji watches as she wrings her hands together desperately, wondering if she'll manage to break her fingers that way.

"I-I-I didn't know you...felt that way," she says slowly. The fear on her face is turning to something else. Disgust?

He realizes suddenly that she thinks he is in love with her, and the thought sets him aflame with fury. He grabs her wrist and shakes it to get her attention. He can feel the delicate bones beneath his fingers.

"I don't," he tells her, and the tone in his voice makes it unmistakable. He was not a man in love. More of the opposite.

He lets go of her hand, almost flings it from himself. "Kiss me," he repeats.

She nods and clenches her hands into fists on her lap. She leans forward slowly, awkwardly, unsure of whether or not to close her eyes, and kissed him. Her lips were soft and cool. She hesitates as if unsure how to continue and presses her lips against his again, different pressure this time, different position.

He suddenly realizes that this is probably her first kiss.

When she starts to draw back, he grabs her shoulder and pushes her onto the floor, their lips never parting in the whole ordeal. He feel the panic wash through her as she struggles beneath him, her hands pushing at his chest, her feet kicking against his legs. He laces his fingers through hers and pushes her hands against the tatami floor, using his weight to pin her down.

Their lips are still touching and he is vaguely aware of her saying something, begging. It registers only as soft, wet brushes against his face. He hears only the rush of blood in his ears, and for that moment he is in the trenches again, huddled into himself to keep warm from the snow. He is grinning in the face of death. He is dying. He is shoving snow into his mouth to mask his presence from the enemies while he tracks them. He is sitting in the snow with Hiashi's body, the other man's blood filling up his lap and steaming in the air. The man's last words still ring in his ears as Hiashi's fingers fall from his cheek, leaving three bright red streaks.

And then he is back, his cheek wet from Hinata's tears. He lets go of her hands, but for a brief moment is unable to detach himself from her, since she has dug her fingers into the back of his hand in her struggle.

"Let go," he says and nods towards his hands. She blinks at him, shocked and dumbfounded. Then she relaxes her fingers and his hands are free and bleeding, marked with three crescent-shaped wounds on each hand.

"I told you you'd regret it, didn't I?" He says coldly, a bitter smile on his face. "Leave."

She scrambles to her feet and rushes for the door. With one foot through the threshold, she turns back and asks him, "Tomorrow morning?"

"Tomorrow morning?" He asks disbelievingly.

"Training," she says. Her tear-streaked face is hard and cold, like a statue battered by the rain.

He stands up slowly and approaches the door. She takes another step backwards until she is completely outside. "Hinata-sama...do you understand the deal we have here?"

She bites her lip and looks almost as if she is about to cry. But she doesn't. And she nods.

He grabs onto the door with one hand, the doorframe with the other. "Next time, I might want more than a kiss."

He slams the door shut in her face before she can respond. His heart is pounding in his chest, trying to claw its way out through his throat. He feels cheated somehow, helpless and wronged.

In the moonlight, he can see the dark marks Hinata's tears left on the tatami mats. The wounds on his hands throb.


	2. Chapter 2

For the next few weeks, he does not touch her. He trains her with words, fixes her stance and posture with gestures made in the air. They talk little. Hinata never overexerts herself anymore. They do not walk home together.

Once he is satisfied with her chakra control, he teaches her how to concentrate chakra into the pupils in order to see chakra points. She is not a quick learner, but she is diligent and masters everything he teaches her given enough time.

"I think I can see them," she says one day.

Neji is sitting under a tree, watching the clouds pass overhead while Hinata worked on concentrating chakra. He turns his eyes to her. "Show me."

"How?" She asks timidly, looking baffled and a bit frightened. She looks at him like that often, as if always afraid that he'll come up with some bizarre new punishment to torture her with. She is always tense with him, even more than she was before.

"Here," he says as he pulls up his sleeve and extends his arm to her. "Show me."

"I don't want to hurt you," she says. Her eyes are compassionate. Forgiving even.

He hates her. "You'll meet me again tonight."

She flinches at that. She looks at his bare arm again, her eyes hard and glassy. While he gathers chakra, she makes her move, hitting the chakra points on his arms with her fingers. The pain is sharp but bearable. When he sees the red welts showing up on his pale skin, he tries to tell himself that the pressure welling up in him is hatred, not pride.

"You missed three times."

"I am sorry, Neji nii-san. My control is not perfect yet." She pauses, then adds: "The chakra flow becomes unstable if I get emotional."

"Learn to control your emotions then."

The look she gives him is unreadable. "I will try."

He cuts their training off early that day. He feels a headache welling up to unbearable proportions behind his left eye, and he no longer wants to see her face. He watches her back and she leaves and feels an inexplicable pressure welling up in his chest. He swallows the lump in his throat and leaves their training ground.

*-*-*

* * *

_He was stunned into silence the first time Hiashi approached him. He'd gotten used to being an invisible boy in the Main House, an obstacle to be sidestepped and looked straight through. But on that day, when the battle had lulled, Hiashi approached him and looked straight at him, not through him._

_"Will you come with me?" Hiashi asked, as if Neji had the option of saying no._

_Silently he followed Hiashi to a quiet spot apart from the others._

_"May I ask what you desire of me?" He said boldly. Neji was disappointed to see that no anger flashed in Hiashi's eyes._

_"Perhaps only one of us will survive this war, Neji," Hiashi said. "Whoever does should know all the Hyuuga techniques."_

The Hyuuga family crypt was freshly adorned with flowers today, as it is every other day. Neji stops outside the crypt door and sits on the steps. The noonday sun casts his long, stretched shadow across the crypt door. It is a warm, sunny day but he feels cold. His skin is damp and clammy, and he cannot keep his hands from shaking.

"When will you stop haunting me, Hiashi?" he whispers bitterly. "Your daughter--look what she has driven me to. Haven't I given your family enough?"

_He is reckless and foolhardy. He knows this and loves it and it makes him the deadliest force in Konoha's army. While the vanguard is inching forward, he is slicing straight into the enemy lines. Men fall dead by the hundreds under his hands while deadly blasts miss him by mere millimeters. Ice shards splinter into his face and he feels no pain, no fear. He feels his blood running down his face and arms and has only one wish: closer. I'm right here. Just end it._  
_  
He sees the ice missile long before he reaches it, long before anyone else without the Byakugan could possibly see it, and he flies towards it like a bird yearning for blue sky. Please. Enough._

The crypt door cracks beneath his fist. Slowly the cracks grow outwards, as if woven by some invisible spider. The first stone tumbles loose as he turns to leave.

"When will it be enough, Hiashi-sama?"

_A black shadow flits across his blue sky and the world grows colder. He slams into the snow face first, a heavy weight on his back. His vision is black but pain flares across his face in bright, stark colors. His back floods with warmth. He hears his name and lifts his head, pushing the weight off of him._

_Hiashi's body falls off him, broken and motionless. The snow absorbs his blood eagerly, blooming red-pink like some carnivorous flower. His brain has ceased to work. He is unable to form words and can only stare blankly at Hiashi's guts steaming in the snow. This is wrong, he thinks. This is not dignified at all. Not a proper way for the Hyuuga Clan leader to die._

_Hiashi reaches for him and Neji instinctively draws closer. The man touches his cheek with his blood stained fingers._

_"The techniques cannot be forgotten," Hiashi said. So cold and business-like, even in death. "You must live, Neji. For Hyuuga. For Hinata."_

_And so Neji survived the war. For that was their bargain._

_*-*-*  
_

_

* * *

  
_

He is awake, pretending to be asleep when she comes. He knows that she knows he is pretending, but both of them feign ignorance, for that is the Hyuuga way. She slips soundlessly into his room and craws under the thin blanket with him, her warm, thin body trembling against his back. Sometime during the night he falls into a genuine slumber, but not before hearing her whisper, "Thank you, Neji nii-san."

He sleeps a dreamless sleep that night. When he wakes, it is still dark out, but Hinata is gone.


End file.
